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Royals could learn from Tigers’ example
By SAM MELLINGERThe Kansas City Star
For years, Kaline had listened to excuses. Not enough revenue this, bad luck in scouting that. This new guy, Dave Dombrowski, he was different. Said the new Tigers would have to be better than the other teams, work harder than division rivals, make fewer mistakes. No excuses, Dombrowski stressed.
Those days are history.
“I knew from there,” Kaline says, “that this was the guy to have his hands on everything. I knew then we’d be back; I just didn’t know how quickly.”
The Tigers have already been in one World Series, in 2006, just three years after losing 119 games. They missed the playoffs last year and reacted by trading prospects for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.
Those moves and others push the payroll toward $134 million — $20 million or so more than anybody else in the AL Central. While the Twins are forced to trade Johan Santana, and the Indians will most likely lose C.C. Sabathia, Detroit recently locked up Cabrera with an eight-year deal — underscoring the reality that the Tigers are in a different tax bracket than the rest of the division.
It’s part of the reason that all 81 Detroit home games may be sold out before opening day, despite a dreadful local economy.
“The Tigers are playing by a different set of rules than the rest of that division right now,” says an NL executive. “Their people are making good decisions and using their resources well, and that part of it should never be overlooked.
“But if you’re Kansas City, you’re doing everything you can, getting better, and then you look up and see the Tigers add Cabrera and Willis? Come on.”
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It’s funny, though. If you look at how the Tigers went from 119 losses to World Series contender, and squint your eyes a little while you’re doing it, it might look like what the Royals are doing now.
It started with the hiring of a new general manager (Dombrowski), who brought in people he’d been successful with in the past (in Florida). They beefed up scouting and player development, focusing on consistently producing major-league players from within (like Curtis Granderson and Justin Verlander).
They were mostly ridiculed for their first major free-agent signing (Ivan Rodriguez) and then told they overpaid for a risky outfielder (Magglio Ordoñez).
In order, change the parentheses to Dayton Moore, Atlanta, Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, Gil Meche and Jose Guillen and it’s at least similar in practice, if not results.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do here, and it’s a lot of fun work,” Royals general manager Dayton Moore says. “We’re building something we’re going to be proud of at some point in time. I don’t know when that’s going to happen. But we’re confident.”
No matter how well the Royals do in scouting and player development, the difference in payroll remains.
Then again, the Royals invested a total of $91 million into Meche and Guillen and offered a reported $80 million more to Torii Hunter.
Nobody can be sure how much money Moore’s leadership can spend in signing and developing new talent. But one thought is that the Royals can contend for the playoffs with a lesser payroll, and then more resources could become available.
“The morale here is the best I’ve ever been around,” says Steve Williams, a Royals scout who came over from Detroit two years ago. “Everybody’s a part of this. There are some organizations where player development and scouting, they’re never on the same page.
“What we’re doing here, we’re all on the same page.”
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The Tigers grab headlines with the big trade and the climb back from near-historical failings, but the better division-rival example may be in Cleveland.
After all, according to one estimate, the Indians’ total payroll during 2003-07 was within $5 million of the Royals’.
If the Royals do make the playoffs, it’s likely to be in the financial David-vs.-Goliath situation that the division champion Indians saw last year, defeating the $190 million Yankees and losing to the $143 million Red Sox.
The degree of difficulty the Royals face now isn’t much different than what the Indians have overcome.
“Probably very similar,” says Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro. “You look at our payrolls, they’ve been almost identical the last few years.”
The Indians’ current run of success comes as the payoff to a gutsy sale of the team’s top talent shortly after Shapiro took over after the 2001 season. He traded for Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner, developed Fausto Carmona and held on to Jhonny Peralta.
Many expect Sabathia to go to the highest bidder, but the Indians were proactive in locking up Sizemore at a discount rate — something the Royals may try to do with their best young players.
There are certain advantages the Indians enjoy — better big-league talent when Shapiro took over, bigger market, more revenue from the ballpark — but they’ve also done it without the high draft picks of Kansas City.
Cleveland’s only top-10 pick since Shapiro took over was No. 6 in 2004 (Jeremy Sowers), though they’ve had multiple first-rounders in 2002, 2003 and 2005.
Over that same period, since 2002, the Royals have picked sixth in 2002 (Zack Greinke), fifth in 2003 (Chris Lubanski), second in 2005 (Alex Gordon), first in 2006 (Luke Hochevar), and second in 2007 (Mike Moustakas). They had multiple first-rounders in 2003 and 2004.
Both teams have more similarities than differences, especially when judged against Detroit. The Tigers have traded 12 prospects in the last two years, something Moore says the Royals just can’t do, at least not now.
“We can’t do that either,” Shapiro says. “We were in on all those trades this winter, but they wanted big-league talent back, too. We always have to be conscious of managing our roster, of balancing young talent with older talent. We need to maintain an efficient roster.
“We need guys performing who aren’t making a lot of money, to balance the guys getting older and getting paid.”
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Kaline’s ready to go outside now, to shake some hands, pose for pictures, and help these new Tigers run through drills. There sure are more fans here now than there used to be, and why not?
The Tigers are a dream mix of enthusiasm, both young and old.
“You look around this team, and man, everything looks good,” Granderson says.
“Now it seems like everyone wants to come here to play for the Tigers,” Carlos Guillen says.
Even after losing the division to Cleveland last year, the Tigers are the consensus baddest dude on the AL Central block. They’ll play all summer to sellout crowds, there to watch a lineup that features seven All-Stars and a rotation topped by the ultra-filthy Verlander.
Dombrowski won’t bite when asked whether the Tigers’ plan can be duplicated in Kansas City. But he does think the label of small market is far from a death sentence.
“I can’t speak to what their situation would be from a financial perspective,” Dombrowski says. “I can just speak market perspective. A few years ago, people were talking about us like we were small market.”